


And loved the sorrows of your changing face

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Gen, Marriage, Nurses & Nursing, Romance, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 01:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7146281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byron Hale considers his options.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And loved the sorrows of your changing face

By late October, Byron was resigned to marrying Anne Hastings. McBurney had been running the hospital for several months. Summers primarily did a few of the simpler surgeries every week and went back and forth to Washington City for meetings which seemed to have little impact on either Mansion House or the War. He generally returned with supplies they couldn’t ordinarily get very easily and always restocked the bourbon, so none of the staff were especially distressed with his frequent absences. Byron had hoped McBurney would shake the place up when he arrived and demote Foster from his position as Executive Officer. After a few weeks passed, it became clear that was not going to happen. In fact, McBurney seemed entirely enamored of Foster, hung on his every tale of Paris and Vienna, the sign of a little-traveled man. Byron had spent months in Mexico and the Western Territories; he wasn’t taken in with stories of Parisian hospitals and German scientific advances. Foster never talked much about anything truly interesting either, just a dull medical man in love with his own voice. What McBurney saw in him, certainly Byron Hale couldn’t say and he was reluctant to ask Anne her opinion; she offered it frequently enough without encouragement and though she was more than friendly with him, that had never stopped her from uttering the most caustic and cutting evaluations which included his own short-comings quite reliably.

No, McBurney was not going to reassign Foster to the main ward, to stay busy with the endless gangrenous limbs and the regular outbreaks of dysentery, and let Byron rightfully assume the XO’s mantle and it was a long time past that he could have hoped to advance his career with an advantageous marriage. He would readily admit he was past the first bloom of youth and his marital prospects had withered on the vine as it were. Mansion House was hardly ripe with opportunity. There were no wealthy, attractive Yankee women willing to be military wives or even dried-up spinsters who’d like to devote their best efforts and social status to the promotion of a deserving Union officer. The hospital was riddled with women, to be sure, but only the flock of nuns, twittering like chooks, Matron Brannan, that sharp-eyed harridan, and Anne, who took his measure and found him wanting more often that he’d like. And there was the Baroness von Olnhausen, called Nurse Mary in these hallways daubed with the ochre of bile, the ever-darkening rust of clotting blood. Her face was like a white camellia against the drab walls or even framed by the blue sky caught in a sealed window and he liked to think of it in between amputations.

He’d harbored a tendre for her since her arrival, smart in her blue traveling coat and little hat tipped over her brow that Anne had crowed was clearly from two seasons ago. Yes, he’d joined in the chorus of requests for spanferkel, but while Summers and Foster hoped to drive her from the hospital with their mockery, he had secretly very much liked the idea of sitting down to a table laden with such an impressive roast, served by such a charming cook. He’d imagined china bowls heaped with buttered parsnips, glossy cabbage with the sheen of garnets and fragrant with cloves, apples baked in their skins until they split-- and a fair woman at his side offering him the choicest bits. It had been a lovely dream made even lovelier by the reality of Mary Phinney. Oh, she had such a sweet red mouth and such soft dark eyes! Her voice could be crisp or soothing but it never grated, even when she was waking him from a nap in the officers’ dining room to go see another suffering boy he’d fail to save. 

Anne had behaved in unexpected ways after Nurse Mary’s arrival; she’d clung to him like a limpet but he’d also espied her attempts to waylay Foster in the stairwell. Cupid himself would have fled before her flaming arrows. She deployed her feminine charms with a martial force which even he found a bit off-putting. The expression on Foster’s face, a curious blend of repulsion, confusion and fascination, as if he were watching a snake shed its skin as he held it in his hand, was almost worth the pang it caused to see the coy overtures made by woman Byron had just that morning called “mine own beloved” while he considered how best to make his proposal. He decided she must have an ulterior motive he was not privy to and left it at that; this approach had served him well over the years and he saw no reason to abandon it. She had been quite affectionate in his room later the same night and had even let him call her “darling Nan” as he nuzzled her without the threat to box his ears, so he was assured of its success once again.

He’d decided there was no longer any reason to postpone asking Anne to marry him. She was a handsome woman and he felt she’d manage a household well, or well enough. He was tired of the frustrating half-measures they took in his bed and he’d no wish for a child everyone counted on their fingers about. He had a ring in his room, his grandmother Verity’s, gold set with a dark stone large enough to be impressive to Anne. He’d seen which way the wind blew regarding Mary Phinney right away—she was a widow who would not marry again, that was certain. It would have to be enough that he had had the chance to watch her from afar, which he did whenever Anne was occupied. Foster monopolized Nurse Mary anyway, always rudely shouting for her to assist him or making jeering comments unsuited to a lady. He found a desire within him to show Foster the error of his ways in yet another sphere and he waited for the opportunity to present itself.

There’d been several skirmishes over the past few weeks and soldiers trickled in, more grievously injured than he would have expected in the absence of a pitched battle. McBurney had instituted some new procedures designed to maximize efficiency, which meant that he and Foster actually had to operate together at times if the case called for it. He admitted he might have enjoyed working alongside the man and learning a few new techniques only demonstrated in Paris, but he would have needed Foster to be mute to tolerate him. Even a request for an instrument was issued as a jibe and the last time they had worked together, Matron had interceded, stating the poor patient might choose to die on the table rather than wake up to such a damnable brawl, my two fine lads! He’d thought there would be an end to it, but Foster had been closeted with McBurney for a good two hours that afternoon and had been somewhat more subdued with him since. 

It was a grey October afternoon after a grey morning; the light hadn’t strengthened with the day, as if it were the sun itself lying ill on the gurney, slowly bleeding out. The soldier had a complex injury to his hip, pelvis and femur that seemed hopeless; if he didn’t die on the table, he’d likely not last the night and he’d never walk again. Byron frankly thought it was a waste of their time and the chloroform Foster insisted on using. There wasn’t anything else terribly pressing though and he wasn’t prepared to propose to Anne without some token of romance—an evening with a moon, candlelight, or perhaps he might beg a winter rose, from little Miss Green. Roses, red roses, suited Anne with their drama, their insistent fragrance, and their implacable thorns. He’d rather think of her turning Grandmother Verity’s ring this way and that with petals in her lap from a rose too tired to keep together, than the way she slumped in her apron stained with the blood of a dozen men and that thin sour look she got; it reminded him of his niece Sarah’s greedy glee when she’d finally gotten a dozen pickled limes. 

They were operating in one of the larger rooms and a smaller ward was visible through an arched opening. Mansion House had been an elegant place in its day, archways here and there, elaborate moldings, and the miles of unknotted oak planks running through the halls, the wards, and up the staircase. Byron knew he’d never have spent one blasted minute in a hotel this expensive before the War and likely not after. The Army paid, but not well. He and Anne would need to accept they’d always have enough but never any real luxury. It wasn’t an issue for him, born into it, but he rather thought Anne had… aspirations. They could discuss it, or she could listen to the truth, after they’d married. Foster was toiling away beside him, trying to create a recognizable landscape within the man’s shattered pelvis while Byron took care of debriding the leg closer to the knee. The healthy joint looked enormous and strangely out of place compared to the disaster just a few inches away. The skin over it was still pink with coarse blond hairs scattered thickly, ruddy with health. The man’s body didn’t know entirely that it was dying.

The work didn’t require all of his attention and he looked about the room aimlessly, waiting for something to catch his eye. Ah, there she was, Nurse Mary! She was dressed in some dark print today and her apron was still neat, neater than Anne’s generally was by the end of the day. Was she more fastidious? Or was she the shirker Anne accused her of being? He’d never seen her try to avoid any request made by Summers or Foster. She’d always answered him promptly when she could. He liked to think Anne was jealous of him, not of Nurse Mary, when she complained about her so much to him but he’d waited in vain for Anne to whisper his name in her sleep or call for him in a crisis. Nurse Mary was doing something or other for a sick man. He couldn’t see what, but he could see the gentleness of her movements and he recognized it from times he had stood closer to her while she tended to a very sick boy. He thought it must be soothing to have her about then, her soft hand cool on a burning forehead, the low hum of whatever song she half-remembered when she sat beside the bed late into the night.

“Nurse Mary, eh? So wasted here, don’t you think, Foster? A woman like that and in a place like this,” he said. Foster barely acknowledged him, made a little sound in his throat and glanced quickly from the patient’s wound to Mary across the room.

“Of course, a widow shouldn’t leave her home, she doesn’t belong mixing with strange men and without a protector of her own. Why, Nurse Mary hardly even looks a widow anymore without her mourning, anyone might think she was an unmarried woman and then what? Can you imagine-- a seduction in a hospital?” he asked. The idea that some soldier, even out of his head with fever, might try to compromise such a woman, or that a Union officer passing through could try to ensnare her with sweet words—it was intolerable!

“Yes, Hale, if you wouldn’t mind,” Foster replied irritably, gesturing to the patient before them. His hands were quite busy even as he looked across the room again at Nurse Mary. There was an expression in his eyes Byron couldn’t read. He’d learned with Foster that if the man didn’t declare himself immediately, vociferously, that he wouldn’t offer up any clues to his inner workings. He glanced down at Foster’s hands and wondered how he could even hold the scalpel with the blood caking his fingers. 

“I’ll give you credit, Foster, you never give up, even on these hopeless cases. As I was just saying, what a shame to see a woman like that here! She’s not the hoity-toity baroness we expected, now is she? Decorative, of course, but she ought to be home with a half a dozen children, that’s what she’s meant for, a proper wife and mother, not this bloody nightmare—what can she do anyway, except wipe some boy’s forehead?” Byron paused. It had made a pretty picture, Nurse Mary as a happy wife with a baby in her arms and some little ones clustered around her, then such a vision of pure modest womanliness, her slender form bent, dabbing at a soldier’s brow with a white cloth. Reality was always a disappointment. “I mean to say, she’s no Nurse Hastings, now there’s a woman made for a battlefield, I’d say anyone would agree with that,” Byron said. Nurse Mary was busy with something, but he thought he saw her glancing their way, the flicker of her dark lashes subtle but not lost on the man with the best vision in his graduating class, by Jove!

“Christ, Hale! Do you mean to babble about Nurse Mary the entire surgery?” Foster’s color was up a little but he was known to be volatile. To think he was the Executive Officer! He’d actually thrown a scalpel at Hale the second time he saw him operate without chloroform. Summers had done nothing, simply said, “Well, he missed, didn’t he?”

“Well, why not? It’s a damn sight more pleasant to talk about her than how this poor devil’s going to die. Poor little thing, no man of her own and I know the type, she’ll never marry again as much good as it would do her. And what’s to occupy her, a woman’s mind is so weak, it needs a man’s guiding force. Even you must agree with that, Foster,” Hale exclaimed. He meant it too, just the thought her alone, so fragile and undefended, subject to the rough world of men, he could hardly stand it! 

“Can you even see past the end of your nose, Hale? Yes, she’s beautiful, the loveliest--but a poor little thing? Have you met her? She’d beard the lion in his den— and weak-minded? The woman is fluent in four languages, reads Erasmus and Euclid, runs this entire hospital, and Heaven help you if you disagree with her! I wish to God you could simply shut your mouth and try to sew up this man’s arteries so that all the work I’m doing isn’t a colossal waste. If you can’t even do that, get the hell out—I’ll call for Samuel Diggs and maybe this poor soldier will have a chance,” Foster cried out, incensed as he was wont to be. It was a shame Nurse Mary had to work in a place with a man like Foster above her, rude, arrogant, always convinced he knew best. What could he know about a woman like Mary Phinney? Surely she had brought Erasmus with her as a remembrance of her dead husband or maybe her father.

Just then, Samuel Diggs approached them. How a man so large could move about so lightly, Byron would never know, but Samuel was uniformly helpful and uncommonly strong so he was a general favorite. Samuel looked at them both, then began addressing Byron.

“Dr. Hale, Nurse Mary sent me, she says she hates to interrupt, but one of your patients, I think Major Wyatt, is doing very poorly and she asked if you could leave off here and see to him.” He paused and turned towards Foster. “Dr. Foster, Nurse Mary said I should stay if you like and assist you until she can find an orderly.”

Foster narrowed his eyes a little as he looked at Samuel Diggs and then nodded curtly, “That’ll do. Hale, just step aside, I’ll tell Samuel what needs doing and you can go wreak havoc elsewhere.” 

Finally, relief! Byron stepped away from the flayed open thigh, the femur gleaming before him and started walking out of the room. He glimpsed Samuel Diggs standing where he had been, working right away. He and Foster didn’t seem to be speaking much but Foster’s posture had changed somehow. Byron tried to remember exactly where Major Wyatt was and what he’d done for him. There was a good chance Nurse Mary would already be at the man’s side or she would have at least sent over one of the nuns or an orderly, someone he could send for morphine if that’s what was called for. She never suggested Anne join him, which meant Anne actually did assist him a good portion of the time on her own initiative. It wasn’t a pleasure exactly, but it always felt like practicing the best medicine when Anne was there with her quick eyes and deft hands. He’d even known her to offer innovations to the care he proposed without any extra commentary or snide criticism; he thought he might miss that when she was his wife and their home was the only place she ruled. There would be compensations though—a good hot meal when he got home, perhaps his slippers toasting before a crackling fire, Anne softened and yet ready to spring to his defense when he recounted the tales of the day.

How he found himself at a table with Foster in the officers’ dining room, a room which used to be a cheerful yellow and was now slowly edging to the old ivory of piano keys, he’d never guess. They were both too tired from lengthy operations and their rounds to spar much and had only glanced at each other as they made quick work of the boiled mutton, limp greens cooked without a ham hock, and greyish turnips that had barely a sprinkle of salt and none of the butter they needed. They were both assuming the posture of men replete, even though the portions had been scant and the food itself deeply unimpressive, when Nurse Mary came to the table with a tray in her hands. Despite the hour, she looked fresh, neatly dressed, not a button or strand of hair out of place; he’d known career military men who could take a page from her book when it came to proper comportment and dignity. She set the tray down on the table’s scratched top that no amount of polish could repair. He thought he smelled cinnamon, gingerbread perhaps, the fragrance of home clinging to her hands, her wide skirts.

“I saw you had finished your meal and I know it was a very trying day, I thought some additional refreshment was called for,” she said kindly, without the syrupy tone Anne might use in such a situation. Foster just looked at her. It would be up to him then to add a measure of civility.

“How kind of you, Nurse Mary! These October days do seem endless,” he replied. She had begun to set cups and saucers before them both, Foster first. She poured out and he saw it was tea, well-brewed but not the coffee he would have preferred. Without speaking, she stirred in a teaspoon of precious white sugar and added a dollop of milk to Foster’s cup; the milk moved in the tea languorously. The steam rose from the cup and she nudged it towards Foster who curved his hand around the waist of the cup and began to open his mouth the speak when she started.

“I know you would have preferred coffee but you need to sleep tonight, it’s too late for you to drink two cups and be able to settle. Samuel Diggs is sitting with Corporal Simpson now but I will relieve him in a bit and you can rest until you make your midnight rounds,” she said. Her voice was even and calm, her hands moving the milk jug and then putting a small dish before Foster with some sweet biscuits.

“Molasses and ginger, I made them just as you—well, the ginger will be soothing. That mutton was nothing I’d care to serve you ordinarily,” she offered. An odd moment, then, her hand lifted from the plate but hovered in the air, unsure, and Byron saw how delicately she was made. She turned to him then, just a half-step.

“Dr. Hale, how do you take your tea, then? I suppose I can fetch some fresh coffee for you if you like, but it will take some time,” she said. How considerate she was! She hadn’t even bothered to ask Foster.

“No, no, Nurse Mary, tea will do for me. No milk though, plenty of sugar,” he replied. She put in two, then three spoonfuls of sugar while she watched him, then offered him the spoon to stir the grains in. He’d a taste for dessert now but there was nothing left on the tray.

“Is there anything else, any pie left in the kitchens? I have a hankering for huckleberry but I’d settle for apple,” he asked. Nurse Mary looked a little startled that he would ask but Foster had been given dessert without even a request.

“I will go and see, Dr. Hale. I’ll try to send something back up, but it may only be some stewed plums and there’s no cream for them, I’m afraid,” she said. Foster hadn’t even finished the freshly baked biscuits but Lord knows there was no point in asking him to share and really, Byron didn’t care for ginger. 

“Thank you, Nurse Mary, we’ll not keep you any longer,” Foster said, the most meager gratitude Byron could imagine. The man’s voice was low, as if he struggled to get the words out, and he lifted a hand towards Nurse Mary as if he was gesturing for her to go? The man didn’t know how to enjoy the pleasure of a pretty woman’s presence, never had based on the stories he told about Paris without any mention of the society there, and of course, his own wife had left for California months ago. Byron certainly couldn’t call Nurse Mary back now and invite her to rest a while before she returned to her work. He sighed.

As she walked out the door, Byron sipped at his tea. It was too hot to drink quickly. Nurse Mary’s dark shawl had caught on the edge of a chair and he saw Foster take it in his hand. It was an unprepossessing wool, no elegant fringe or embroidery, a vague color between black and a very dark blue. Foster rose with it in his hand.

“Not much for a baroness, eh? Color doesn’t suit her at all, not a pretty thing in the least. I can’t imagine why she still wears it,” Byron said.

“No, you can’t imagine, can you,” Foster said, his dark eyes serious but without the familiar edge of sarcasm. He hadn’t said it like a question. He murmured to himself, “She’ll get cold” and walked briskly out of the room without even a by-your-leave in the direction Nurse Mary had taken.

“Good riddance!” Anne exclaimed as she said down next to Byron just then, setting a shallow bowl of stewed plums in front of herself. She looked tired and a bit put-out but she gave him a fond smile as she began eating the fruit. Her dark hair was coming loose from its bun and a tendril brushed against her cheek. He wished he could take her hand in his but she was not likely to respond well if he interrupted her.

“Perhaps, my dearest love, you might save me a bite? I wasn’t given even the least dessert myself,” he wheedled. She liked that sometimes, to have a supplicant.

“I’ll see. Didn’t Foster offer you anything, the greedy boy?” she replied. He’d been right, she was enjoying the pudding, as she called it, even more with the dollop of acrimony she thrived on.

“No, he doesn’t like to share.” Byron said, flatly.

Anne pushed the bowl towards him and picked up his tea. “She made this, I assume? Our lady baroness?” she asked, then took a great swallow. “Can’t even make a proper cup of tea, far too sweet,” she declared and grimaced. He would not tell her it was as he liked; his mouth was full of plums, so sweet and so cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Re-watching the first season, I have been struck by how Byron Hale seems genuinely fond of Mary. I started thinking about what he wanted, how disappointed he was not to get the promotion he felt he deserved as the career Army man, and what he might make of his relationship with Anne Hastings. I have this idea about him that he sees some of what is there, but not all of it-- he's never entirely wrong, but he misses important stuff-- a lot. I wanted Jed to show Hale how much he (Jed) cares about Mary but Hale will not "get" any of it based on his own firm beliefs about Jed and Mary. I also decided to throw in a little poetry with the spanferkel.
> 
> The title this time comes from W.B. Yeats's wonderful poem "When You Are Old." Here is the relevant excerpt:  
> “How many loved your moments of glad grace,  
> And loved your beauty with love false or true,  
> But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,  
> And loved the sorrows of your changing face;”
> 
> Another few notes:
> 
> "This Is Just To Say" (1934) is a famous imagist poem by William Carlos Williams.  
> I have eaten  
> the plums  
> that were in  
> the icebox
> 
> and which  
> you were probably  
> saving  
> for breakfast
> 
> Forgive me  
> they were delicious  
> so sweet  
> and so cold
> 
> Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (/ˌdɛzɪˈdɪəriəs ɪˈræzməs/; 28 October[1] 1466[2] – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus,[note 1] was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists"


End file.
